Action comedy The Fall Guy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt heads the new titles at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, opening in 702 cinemas through Universal.
Directed by David Leith, The Fall Guy is written by Drew Pearce and loosely based on a 1980s TV series of the same name about stunt performers.
Gosling plays a stuntman working on his ex-girlfriend’s directorial debut action film, where he becomes involved in a conspiracy surrounding the lead actor.
The Fall Guy debuted at SXSW on March 12; it is Gosling’s first credit as producer since his 2014 directorial debut Lost River.
US filmmaker Leitch previously worked as a stuntman, on films including Fight Club, Ocean’s Eleven and The Bourne Ultimatum. This is his fifth feature as director, with three of his four previous efforts breaking the £10m mark: 2018’s Deadpool 2 (£32.9m), 2019’s Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (£20.7m) and 2022’s Bullet Train (£11m).
Sony is starting Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg’s horror Tarot, based on Nicholas Adams’ 1992 novel Horrorscope, in 400 sites. It centres on a group of friends who violate the sacred rule of a Tarot card readings, unleashing an evil force trapped within the cards.
Sweet little Lies
Love Lies Bleeding, the second feature from 2018 Screen Star of Tomorrow filmmaker Rose Glass, opens in 253 cinemas through Lionsgate. The film stars Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian in the story of a gym manager who falls for a bodybuilder passing through town en route to a competition in Las Vegas.
Love Lies Bleeding debuted at Sundance in January, going on to play Berlin, Glasgow and BFI Flare film festivals.
It is Glass’ second feature after 2020 horror Saint Maud, which scored two Bafta nominations for outstanding British film and outstanding British debut, and grossed £852,881 in a market heavily afflicted by the pandemic.
Independent releases this weekend include New Wave Films’ Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry in 27 sites. The third feature from Georgian filmmaker Elene Naveriani, it debuted in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes last year, and has won prizes including the best film and best actress awards from Sarajevo Film Festival, and best film, screenplay and editing from this year’s Swiss Film Prize awards.
Further independent titles include Bulldog Film Distribution’s documentary Red Herring, about a filmmaker who discovers he has a terminal brain tumour, in two sites; Soudade Kaadan’s war drama Nezouh, a Venice 2022 selection, through Modern Films; Cosmic Cat Film’s mortality documentary Much Ado About Dying; and canine caper Lassie: A New Adventure through Kaleidoscope Film Distribution.
Miracle63/Dazzler is opening Chinese animation Super Wings the Movie: Maximum Speed in 359 sites; while Disney’s re-release of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace will start in over 600 cinemas. That title has £56.4m in the bank from its original 1999 release, at which point it was the second-highest-grossing film ever in the territory behind Titanic.
MetFilm Distribution is giving a 55-screen theatrical opening to Amazon Studios’ The Idea Of You, starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine in the story of a 40-year-old mother who begins a romance with a 24-year-old singer from a boy band.
Event cinema releases from the past week playing encore screenings this weekend include Trafalgar Releasing’s Macbeth starring Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, and Royal Opera House’s Carmen.
Figures released today by analytics firm Comscore show a 3% deficit across the first four months of 2024, compared to the previous year. Titles including Warner Bros’ Challengers and Studiocanal’s Back To Black will need to hold well across the spring to improve those numbers.
No comments yet